May 31
2006

Joss Whedon to write Stan Lee tribute story.
It's all to celebrate Stan Lee's 65th anniversary with Marvel Comics. Brian Bendis broke the news to Stan in an interview at the revamped Wizard site. Update: Joss' story isn't really about Spider-Man but instead it's "an inter-dimensional comic book convention" tale according to Newsarama.

In case anyone's confused by some of the comments. Intitial impressions were that Joss was to write a Spider-Man tale to pay tribute to Stan but with the new info from Newsarama it's clear that this will be a nice tribute about Stan's influence on the world of comic books.

One of those bits of news that makes you think 'About frikkin time'. Apart from the X-men Spidey has to be the most natural fit with Joss' stuff. Cannot wait.

Great interview as well. Stan Lee is indeed legend. I think when the interviewer's also a writer you tend to get a better class of question even if in this case there was maybe a little bit of hero worship going on (hey, totally understandable, Bendis probably does what he does in large part thanks to Stan Lee and people like him).

One of those bits of news that makes you think 'About frikkin time'. Apart from the X-men Spidey has to be the most natural fit with Joss' stuff. Cannot wait.

Can not agree more. I've always felt that Spiderman and X-Men were the two titles closest to Joss' own style as a writer and I cannot wait to see what he does with Spidey. If only he'd have enough time to take on another comicbook and write a regular spidey-series. I'd be in geek heaven.

He's being paired with Michael Gaydos, which is very interesting. Loved his Alias work so damn much (has anyone here read that? Truly fantastic work from Bendis. Go buy it now). Just not sure if he'll fit the Spider-Man "idea" as such. Joss, however, will. He should have been writing Spider-Man for a long while now.

Still. This is very good idea. Some interesting character choices as well.

And, because I'm so mentally challenged, can someone clarify something: Where it says Lee and Larroca (who I adore his X-Men work, actually this entire collection of artists just make me go "<3") and then Loeb by himself, I assume that means Larroca will be drawing the new Lee story and the Loeb story?

Best comics-related news in about a trillion years. My favorite character being written by my favorite writer, who just so happens to fit Spidey like a glove...that's one comic book I will buy dozens of copies of.

Plus, Stan Lee! Every time he does something new, I make sure to snatch it up...and wasn't this interview just wonderful? Kind makes me like Fellini better. Kinda.

I laughed when I read that because I suggested Gaydos as my perfect choice for this project...all the way back on 5-24-06 (don't know how to do one of those cute linky things) but its in my recent comments list. While I can't do a link, I still get to say, "YEAH BABY! I called it!"

Side note, I met Michael Gaydos at last years Wizard World Chicago and he was super nice...drew me a sketch!

There's an article about this at Newsarama which describes the plot of Joss's conribution as the story of "an inter-dimensional comic book convention". Also worth noting is that the back-up stories won't necessarily feature superheroes at all and might not take place in the Marvel universe.

Damn, so the Joss penned bit won't actually have everyone's favourite wall-crawler in it ? That's a tad disappointing (I didn't just get the wrong end of the stick, I was actually in the wrong forest, gathering bundles of non-sticks for my growing wrong-ended non-stick collection ;). Still, probably pick it up since the main stories sound cool anyway.

Yeah, gouki, I agree that Gaydos' work was really good on Alias which was a brilliant series in general though I didn't think the first trade of The Pulse was as good so haven't rushed to read the rest (I think Jessica Jones' past traumas and consequent attitude suited her better to the Max line than the kid friendlier mainstream Marvel).

I also agree with alexreager that he'd be well suited to the Buffy comics so this could be a little try out for the two creators to see how well they gel. Maybe we'll see Gaydos do Season 8 too.

Saje, the comic book Alias totally gets better and better as it goes along.

I do have one suggestion though, if you are going to read more Alias storylines, read the cooresponding Daredevil arcs at the same time...kind of an Angel season 1 Buffy season 4 thing. There are lots of little overlaps that go between the two books...and strangely enough, I've never seen anyone praise that aspect of the Bendis Daredevil/Alias run. It works really well.

"He's being paired with Michael Gaydos, which is very interesting. Loved his Alias work so damn much (has anyone here read that? Truly fantastic work from Bendis. Go buy it now)."

I was just coming to the thread solely to rave about that. (Got the Alias Omnibus.) Gaydos is fantastic with mood, storytelling, and subtle emotions on characters. Looking forward to this.

"And, because I'm so mentally challenged, can someone clarify something: Where it says Lee and Larroca (who I adore his X-Men work, actually this entire collection of artists just make me go "<3") and then Loeb by himself, I assume that means Larroca will be drawing the new Lee story and the Loeb story?"

Either that, or the artists simply haven't been determined yet, that happens occasionally in early sollicitations.

I was so excited by this when I read it earlier, but reading that Joss isn't actually writing a Spidey story as such after all had taken the edge off it. Still, I'm sure whatever he does will be interesting. But I so liked the idea of him writing Spidey.

Very funny...I was a very youthful subscriber to 5 Marvel titles at the time "The Night Gwen Stacey Died" ran (I think that was what it was called...the title ran on the last, not splash page)...that "ish" was a stunner, a real shocker...I met a bunch of Marvel folks way back in the day (Kirby, Thomas, et. al.), but never Stan the Man, until about 10 years ago at a TV programming executive trade show in Las Vegas...he was an utterly charming and friendly gentleman.

In fact, a couple of years ago I read an interesting analogy between Peter Parker and Buffy. Rafael Marín, one outstanding comic critic in my country, close friend and partner of the draughtsman Carlos "Fantastic Four" Pacheco, wrote in his weblog that any fan of Spidey could see how similar is Buffy as a character, besides the analogies between the whole comic and the show _Cordelia as a Mary Jane sosias, the (a)social life of both of Buffy and Peter in High School, even Joyce's illness...

The article is in spanish, though I could translate it if someone desires to link it.